Monday, December 29, 2008

Two useful 3ds Max scripts by reFORM Studios are available for download.

Curtainwall - The Curtainwall Wizard allows you to take any polygonal object and convert it into a curtainwall system; complete with glass, mullions, and silicon joints. The resulting curtainwall is parametric so you can make changes to the base mesh and it will update model in realtime. Please note that this Maxscript is only a beta release and new features such as glass chamfer, randomize ID, jitter, attach and mullion chamfer will be implimented soon.

Material Lister - The material lister provides a means to view all the scene materials in list format along with the most commonly used parameters. Ideal for trying to find that rogue material or parameter.

Sunday, December 28, 2008

There is always many ways to do something.Final result dependence from many factors.This is a quick setup to get started only.

Start with a Raytrace material,and use a "Falloff" material for the Diffuse spot.

Change the Falloff Type to "Fresnel".Change the top color to the color you want the paint to be,and the bottom color to solid Black.

Now back to the Main material,and use Falloff for the Reflection as well.Again change the Fallof type to Fresnel.Leave the bottom color at White,and change the Black material to a very dark grey (Value of about 15).

Back to the Main material now,change the Specular level to about 120,and the Glossiness to about 60.

Saturday, December 27, 2008

3D Studio MAX offers a great Advanced mod feature, also Fullscreen mod, really clear workspace, but without hotkeys it will be very uselessly. Even you dont use this powerful interface option, creating 3D art is a time-consuming activity, and using hotkeys and the mouse efficiently can save you tons of time. As you know, the mouse is an easy to learn in working process but you need to spend some time looking up the hotkey.

Press F1 or search for Default Keyboard Shortcuts in the 3D Studio MAX user reference, you should be able to find a complete overview.

In addition to the default keyboard shortcuts, you can use the following procedure to create a custom keyboard shortcut:

Choose Customize menu > Customize User Interface > Keyboard panel.

Use the Group and Category lists to find the action for which you want to create a shortcut.

Click action in the Action list to highlight it.

In the Hotkey field, enter the keyboard shortcut you want to assign to the action.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Hi everyone... Do you have any idea about Reverse Rendering? Means Rendering the Forward animation reversely in 3ds Max?? or Rendering the same scene using 2 Cameras at the same time?

Today we are going to discuss some tricks and tips in Videopost: the advanced Compositing and Visual FX utility in 3ds MAX. Actually nowadays people are not looking into that powerful section. But if you exploring Videopost, you’ll get some nice FX and options right in 3ds Max like Reverse Rendering.

Reverse Rendering

It’s a powerful process in 3ds Max with which we are rendering an animation reverse, that means 100 to 0, actually it is not possible any other 3d program directly.

Open the Video post window from Rendering>Video Post

Click the Add Scene Event Button in the Video Post Window

You will get a window like this, in that Uncheck the "Lock to Video Post Range" Checkbox and in the Scene range window, set your last frame as the Scene start and vice versa.

From the "Add Image output event" set a file name, format for your Rendering and Execute the sequence from the Video Post Window.

In this tutorial, we will make basic rain-fall animation against a matching background in 3dsmax. The final result would be as shown below:

Final rendered animation

Step 1Have a look at what we will use for the rain. We will use “Spray” particle system to simulate such raining system which is located under Create > Geometry > Particle Systems.

Step 2For now, just to have an idea click on Spray button and, in the Top viewport, drag to draw a rectangular spray icon.

Step 3If you click the Play button, you will see how particles are emitting from the Spray source.

Step 4OK, let’s delete it for now and then choose an environment image with which we will match the rain-fall. We could model an actual environment for this purpose, but since our main focus will be the rain itself we will use just an environment picture that shipped with 3dsmax (thanks to autodesk). Press ‘8’ in your keyboard to open the Environment dialogue box.

Step 5Click on the button labeled “None”, then choose “Bitmap” in the Material/Map Browser window.

Step 8Although the image has been set to be rendered as the background we will need to set it up as the Viewport Background as well to aid our scene arranging process. For that, activate the perspective viewport and press ‘ALT+B’ in the keyboard. Then check both “Use Environment Background” and “Display Backgrund”. Click OK.

Step 9Now, you should see the Image in the Perspective view.

Step 10At this stage, we should set up a camera to assign it to the Perspective viewpot. Choose Create > Cameras (Standard) > Target and then drag in the Top viewport to place a camera. Go to Perspective viewport and press ‘C’ in the keyboard t assign the camera to the view.

Step 11While the Camera01 is still selected go to the Modify panel and check “Show Horizon”.

Step 12Showing horizon will let you see a black horizontal line in the camera viewport which represents eye level. It will facilitate to adjust the camera. You may see another same looking line in the view before showing horizon. But that is grid line, not the horizon line.

Step 13Create a box in the Top viewport as shown. This box will be our water surface matched to that of the background image.

Step 14Now maximize and adjust the Camera01 viewport (using Truck/Orbit/Dolly tools located at the lower-right navigation area) so that the water surface box is set with the background images’ water portion.

Step 15Name the box as “water surface”. Then press ‘M’ in the keyboard to open the Material Editor.

Step 16The first empty slot should be selected by default. We will now make a water material with this one. Set Specular Level = 102 (approx.) and Glossiness = 49 (approx.).

Step 17Go down and expand the Maps roll-out. Then click the None button in the Bump slot. In the Material/Map browser window, choose Noise.

Step 18In Noise Parameters, set the Size value = 5. It may be adjusted further later on while having a look on the rendered result for the water.

Step 19Now, assign a Flat Mirror map to the Reflection map (just under the Bump slot). Flat Mirror is good enough as water kind reflection map.

Step 20Under Distortion group, increase the Distortion Amount value to 2 To get enough noisy reflection. And to match the reflection with the Bump look choose “Use Bump Map” option.

Step 21Our Water Material is ready. Apply this material to the water surface in the viewport.

Step 22Quick Render the Camera viewport to see the resulting water surface.

Step 23If you are not happy with the result, adjust the values in material editor. Also you can adjust the diffuse color. And if you are happy with the rendered image, let’s animate the water now. Turn ON the Auto Key and go to the last frame of the animation. In the Material Editor, set the Phase value = 10. You will not be able to see the resulted animated water until you render out the whole animation which you do later on.

Step 24Now, for the Rain, create a Spray particle system in the top viewport covering at least the water surface as shown below.

Step 25Using the Front viewport, position the Spray enough above the water surface. Also, rotate the Spray to simulate the natural rain-fall direction.

Step 26If you play the animation you will perhaps understand that some adjustments are needed to achieve the rain-look in the Parameters area of the Spray.

Step 27Go to the modifier panel and set the parameters of the Spray as

Viewport Count = 500

Render Count = 6000

Speed = 22

Timing Start = -100

Timing Life = 100

Step 28Quick Render the camera view again. You will see a raw particle looking which obviously you did not expect for the rain-fall.

Step 29We must apply a matching material to the spray which is representing the rain-drops. Open the Material Editor again and select the second empty material slot.

Step 30Apply a pure White color (255, 255, 255) to the Diffuse color (since Ambient color is locked with the diffuse it should also be white as well). Set the Self-Illumination value to 100.

Step 31Apply the material to the Spray and have a Quick Render. Still it is not a rain-like thing. We still need some adjustments for the object properties of spray itself.

Step 32Select (if it is not already selected) and right-click on Spray01 and choose “Object Properties” (it may be “Properties” in the earlier versions of max).

Step 34Quick Render again. The appearance of the rain has been improved a lot. But we can do further adjustments in the parameters of Spray.

Step 35While the Spray01 is still selected, go to modify panel again and set the Render Count = 8000 and Drop Size = 1.5. These values and other values may be played with later on when you practice.

Step 36Quick Render. You will see more improved result.

Step 37But one important thing – if you notice the animation in the Left or Front viewport you will see that the rain is penetrating and thus passing through the water surface. We should not let it happen, rather we should make the raindrops be stopped by the surface and do a little bounce on the water surface.

Step 38To do it, make a Deflector (Create > Space Warps > Deflectors > Deflector) aligned and matched to the water surface.

Step 39Select the Spray01. Then enable the Bind to Space Warp button in the main toolbar and drag to the Deflector01 to bind the spray to the deflector.

Step 40Play the animation in the Front or Left viewport. You will see that now rain is not passing through the surface. But the bounce is too high. We should lower it. We should also have some variations.

Step 41Select the Deflector01 and go to its parameters in the modifier panel.Set the Bounce = 0.02, Variation = 23, Chaos = 4.

Step 42Quick Render to see the result. If you are happy you may like to render out the animation. Before, that you should save the file. Because, at the time of rendering the whole animation, if your computer becomes unstable for other reasons (windows problem etc.) or electricity goes OFF (which is a common problem in the non-developed country), you may get the file corrupted after re-opening it. So, this is a good and safe idea to save frequently the max file while working on.

Step 44Either choose “Active Time Segment: 0 to 100” option or Range option with a specified range. Then go down and choose Save option with an .avi file for the output. Hit “Render” button and see the result after rendering of the whole sequence is finished.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

Before starting this tutorial, I assume that all the readers have a basic knowledge of 3dsmax.

Most of us know how to create a reflecting mirror in 3D max. It’s easy as apple pie. For those who do not know. The steps are here.

Create a plane or a box or any geometry with flat surfaces.

Open material editor and click on the diffuse spot of any empty slot.

Select flat mirror form the new material library.

Apply material to the geometry. (Plane is the best to choose.)

Now, create any object in front of the geometry or the mirror.

Add a light, preferably omni in the scene.

Render. The reflection can be seen clear as a crystal!

For all those artists who have been through this, know its limitations. Flat mirror material cannot reflect its own reflection. Confused? Most of you must have been to a barber shop? What do you find? Two mirrors in front of each other, showing multiple reflections. Flat mirror fails in that way. Either you arrange the scene to cheat a bit or you use one mirror.

Setting up the scene with flat mirrors can be interesting but you cannot create an animation as they fail to reflect their own reflections.

To create a multiple reflection scene, what can be done? Before proceeding further, let me tell you that the people who have a low end system must follow the further steps at there own risk. Now let’s make the material and the scene.

Material:

Select an empty slot.

Change the Ambient and diffuse colour to black and specular to white.

In maps, apply Raytrace to the reflection map with reflection value set to 100.

Scene:

It’s a bit tricky. Create a frame for the glass.

Now create a plane over the frame that is going to be used as the glass.

Apply the material to the plane. ( You can also use a multi sub object material to create the complete assembly).

Make a clone of the complete mirror setup and place it in front of the old one.

Create any object between the two mirrors, let’s say, a teapot on a box.

Adjust the camera angle to render.

I placed a skylight with intensity 1.5 and light tracer left on. Even without any light in the scene, it is going to work.

Render the scene.

This mirror is much superior in performance, over the flat mirror. The flat mirror can be only applied to the flat surfaces, but this mirror can be applied to any kind of geometry, even complex mesh objects such as automobiles, characters and even to NURBS objects. If you have noticed rivets or spoons, they have a kind of bloated reflection. The material will solve the issue of creating such reflection as well. So enjoy your new mirror and feel free to contact me for queries at sushant3dartist@gmail.com. Please critic this tutorial. Your suggestions are most welcome.

In this tutorial, with a basic shape, we're going to jiggle a hundred or so objects in under 30 seconds. This will utilise a very small piece of Max script which you can utilise to do any sort of randomisation you require.

Randomly changing orientation will not be covered, as it requires more than a single line (and thus, isn't "Fast").

Step 1 - Select the objects to JiggleI've made a ground plane and a rock object. I've instanced the rock object 99 times so there are 100 rocks. What we're going to do is offset them within a tolerance on the X and Y axis, then scale them randomly as well. The application of this can be anything, asteroids, leaves, rain drops, whatever floats your boat.

If you don't have any rocks, make some teapots or sphere's.

Step 2 - Using ScriptingIn the bottom left of Max (by default) is where you can quickly enter Maxscript commands. Now, simply putting in a move command will obviously move the selection in a uniform manner.

We're going to move each object individually by performing the same task 100 times (well, as many times as you have objects).

The syntax of what I want to do is quite simple.

for i in selection do move i [x,y,z] for i in selection --- Run this loop as many times as there are objects in my selection do move i --- move object i [x,y,z] --- The affected coordinates

random 30.0 0 --- this is the random function.Its syntax is "Random "

So, I'm going to jiggle the rocks 25 units on the X and Y axis with the following...

for i in selection do move i [random 25 0, random 25 0, 0]

This moves the objects up to 25 on the X and Y axis. Z has been left as 0.

Now we'll do the same thing for scale... Since I have used rocks, my pivot is at ground level, not in the centre. Also, I am only scaling on the Z axis to flatten my rocks out.

for i in selection do scale i [1,1,random 1.1 0.1]

So there we have it. A simple and quick way to jiggle scale and movement of objects.

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Wednesday, December 24, 2008

... Welcome folks to my first blog.If God willing, i wish to build a good pleace for people who want to learn Autodesk 3DStudio Max . Post all what we need about -- tutorials, guides, tip and tricks, resources links, et.c. Well, that's the idea. Let's see what happens :)Also i wish to do team work, so if you want to support the team check up here.